Death Track

by Sally Rigby

  ‘Why him?’ Mrs Holmes-Reed moaned. ‘I didn’t want him to get the train, but he insisted. Why didn’t you back me up and say no?’ Her fists were clenched, and she thumped her husband on the chest.

  ‘Stop, Vicky,’ he said, gently removing her hands from him. ‘It’s not helping.’

  ‘Mr Holmes-Reed, I’d like to ask you some questions, if you’re up to it?’ Whitney said, forcing herself not to be distracted by the palpable grief in the room.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, nodding.

  ‘Did anyone know Hugo was going to catch the train back to school?’

  ‘We only decided this morning. He might have sent a text to one of his friends. I don’t know, he didn’t say.’

  ‘How often did he come home during term time?’

  ‘Usually only at half-term, but he came back this weekend for his younger brother’s birthday party yesterday.’

  ‘Where is your other son?’

  ‘He’s with my parents. His grandparents. I dropped him around there after taking Hugo to the station.’

  ‘Would you like us to contact them for you? They could stay with your wife while you come with us to make the identification,’ Whitney suggested.

  ‘I want to see him, too,’ Mrs Holmes-Reed said. Tears stained her face, but she looked determined. ‘I want to come with you, Alan.’

  ‘Okay,’ her husband said, taking her hands in his.

  ‘We’ll take my car and then go to my parents’ house after.’

  ‘I’m not letting you drive,’ he said. ‘You’re not up to it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Whitney interrupted. ‘We can take you both to Lenchester and bring you back here, later.’

  Mr Holmes-Reed glanced at his wife. ‘Thank you, but no. We’d rather be alone.’

  ‘I understand. Before we go, please may we take a look at Hugo’s bedroom?’ Whitney asked.

  ‘Why?’ Mrs Holmes-Reed frowned.

  ‘We’d like to check if there’s anything out of the ordinary in there. Anything that can help us identify who has done this to your son.’

  ‘I’ll show you the way,’ Mr Holmes-Reed said as he got up from the sofa.

  He led them out of the sitting room, across the brown and white geometrically shaped floor-tiled hallway, and up the dark wooden stairs. He opened the first door on the right, and they walked into a large square bedroom with a bay window overlooking the road. On the walls were posters of Coventry City football team.

  Mr Holmes-Reed leaned against the door frame, while Matt and Whitney pulled on disposable gloves and searched. There was a desk against the wall, but there was nothing on it other than two comics and some juggling balls. On the floor was a rumpled pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. It was a typical fourteen-year-old’s bedroom. Whitney opened the wardrobe and saw a selection of clothes hanging, with a few items screwed up at the bottom.

  ‘Did Hugo have any hobbies?’ she asked.

  ‘He loved his football, and whenever he was home, we’d go to watch Coventry play. He was in the school football team and also liked swimming and tennis.’

  ‘So, he was very sporty,’ she said.

  Mr Holmes-Reed nodded and let out a low moan. ‘I can’t deal with this. What are we going to do? What?’ Tears filled his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

  ‘Why don’t you go downstairs to be with your wife,’ Whitney suggested. ‘We’ll meet you back there. We won’t be long.’

  The man nodded and left them alone.

  ‘God, I hate this job sometimes,’ Matt said as he shook his head.

  ‘I know,’ she agreed. ‘We walk into people’s lives and change them forever. I don’t know what I’d do if Tiffany was taken away from me.’

  ‘Try not to think about it,’ Matt said as he looked through Hugo’s possessions.

  After a thorough search there was nothing obvious that could help, so they went downstairs. Whitney’s throat tightened at the sight. Mrs Holmes-Reed was crumpled up, while her husband, sitting next to her, was as stiff as a statue. Silence filled the room.

  ‘Would you like me to make you both a cup of tea before we go?’ she asked.

  ‘No, thank you. We’d rather go and see Hugo,’ Mr Holmes-Reed replied, his knuckles white against his knees.

  ‘Okay. We’ll leave now and you can follow in your car.’

  She drove to the morgue, making sure to keep the parents in sight in her rear-view mirror. She’d phoned on ahead to alert the duty pathologist they were on their way. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Claire, as she was in a meeting with the coroner.

  The journey took just over an hour. She parked outside the morgue, which was adjacent to the hospital, and left Matt in the car. When Mr and Mrs Holmes-Reed joined her, they seemed calmer and more in control than earlier. Whitney knew it wouldn’t last, as once they saw their son’s body the reality of the situation would hit them.

  ‘It’s just through here,’ Whitney said to the couple as they pushed open double doors and headed down the corridor.

  As usual, the faint sickly sweet smell, disguised by the overpowering antiseptic odour, hit her, and she could see by their facial expressions, it had done the same to the couple. She opened the door to the morgue and turned right, into the small office where the pathologists worked.

  Tim Haig, the duty pathologist, was sitting at one of the desks. He stood.

  ‘Hello, Dr Haig. This is Mr and Mrs Holmes-Reed. They’ve come to identify Hugo.’

  ‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ Tim Haig said. ‘If you’d rather not see him, I can show you photographs, and you can identify him that way.’

  Mr and Mrs Holmes-Reed looked at each other and were silent for what seemed like ages.

  ‘I want to see him,’ Mrs Holmes-Reed finally said, her voice a whisper.

  ‘We want to see our son,’ Mr Holmes-Reed agreed, nodding.

  ‘As you wish,’ Dr Haig said. ‘You can view him through here.’ He ushered them out of the office and into a small room with a window from which the main lab area could be viewed. There were three stainless steel tables, and on the one closest to the window, a body covered in a sheet was stretched out. Whitney took a step back so the couple could see.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Dr Haig asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Holmes-Reed said, his fists clenched by his side.

  The doctor left the room and walked into the lab. He pulled back the sheet, but only as far as the young boy’s neck, which Whitney was grateful for. She didn’t want them to see the stab wound.

  Mrs Holmes-Reed gasped and grabbed hold of her husband’s hand. He stood there staring, his jaw tight.

  ‘Is this your son, Hugo?’ Whitney asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Holmes-Reed said, his voice raw and broken.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She nodded to the doctor, and he covered Hugo’s face with the sheet.

  ‘Let’s sit in the office for a moment,’ Whitney suggested. ‘Any chance you can rustle up some tea or coffee?’ she asked the doctor as they left the room.

  ‘I’ll get some out of the machine,’ he said.

  The couple sat on the office chairs.

  ‘I’m so sorry you had to go through that,’ she said.

  ‘You better get the bastard who did this,’ Mr Holmes-Reed said, his eyes bright with anger. ‘If you don’t, I will. I won’t rest until we find out who took my boy. He…’ His voice broke and he collapsed in on himself, violent sobs shaking his body.

  His wife, who’d been silent, rushed over and pulled him into her arms, stroking his head, whispering soothing platitudes.

  Whitney couldn’t bear to watch, so she left them alone and went into the corridor.

  ‘I’ll get the fucker who did this, if it’s the last thing I do,’ she said to herself.

  Chapter Five

  Monday, 10 June

  ‘Good morning. It’s Claire,’ the pathologist said as Whitney answered her phone.

  ‘I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.’ She glanced at her wat
ch. It was only eight in the morning, and even though Claire worked long hours, early starts had never been her thing.

  ‘I wanted to speak to you about something of interest on the body.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I believe chloroform was used on the victim before he was stabbed,’ the pathologist said.

  ‘To subdue him?’

  ‘That would be the most likely reason. I could tell from the smell once I was doing the autopsy. I’ve sent his bloods to toxicology, and that should confirm it. We’re lucky we got to him quickly. Chloroform doesn’t stay in the bloodstream for long.’

  Newspaper headlines flashed in Whitney’s mind. Chloroform. Knife attack. Train. A series of murders all over the country.

  ‘Oh, no. Not us. Please not us,’ she muttered.

  ‘You know something?’ Claire asked.

  ‘If it’s what I think it is, we’re sitting on a time bomb. You heard of the Carriage Killer?’

  ‘I know of those murders. Why do you think this is linked?’

  ‘What isn’t widely known is that chloroform was used in the attacks. I heard about it by chance. If it’s Lenchester’s turn, this is the first of four. I better go. I need to speak to George, PDQ. We’re going to need her help on this one. We’ll come and see you later this morning and discuss the rest of your findings, if that’s okay with you?’

  ‘It will have to be,’ the pathologist said in her usual way before ending the call.

  Whitney keyed in George’s number, strumming her fingers on the desk while she waited for the psychologist to answer.

  ‘Whitney. How are you?’

  ‘Fine. How was the weekend with your parents?’

  Although the psychologist didn’t often confide in her, she did mention how arduous she found the time she spent with her folks. Whitney’s relationship with her parents had always been loving and deep. She still missed her father, even though he’d been dead for over ten years. She pitied George for not having a close family.

  Whitney didn’t have many friends because she spent so much time at work, but George was special. It was thanks to her that towards the end of last year Whitney’s daughter Tiffany was saved from being murdered by a pair of psychotic twins. No words could ever express her gratitude. She’d walk over hot coals for the woman.

  ‘As to be expected, and not something I want to relive if it’s all the same to you. Why are you calling?’

  Whitney was used to George’s abrupt manner and didn’t take offence.

  ‘A young teenage boy was stabbed to death while travelling on the train yesterday. The killer used chloroform to subdue him. If the perp is who I think it is, we need to act fast. There’ll be other victims.’

  ‘What else can you tell me?’

  ‘No clues were left, apart from the chloroform, but that hasn’t helped. If I’m right, after choosing an area, four murders will be carried out over a two-week period before the killer moves on. Lenchester is the fourth city to be targeted. How soon can you get here?’

  ‘Give me a couple of hours. The students are on exam leave at the moment, but I do have a tutorial with one of my PhD students. Shall I see you at your office?’

  ‘No. Meet me at the morgue. We’ll speak to Claire together.’

  She ended the call and went to the incident room next door. Her team was waiting. It was a large space and had around twenty officers working from there. She headed to Ellie’s desk and handed her the evidence bag containing the victim’s phone that she’d taken out of the storage room earlier.

  ‘Take a look through this and see if our victim texted anybody while he was on the train. He might have seen something suspicious and told someone about it.’

  ‘Yes, guv.’

  Whitney walked over to the board at the back of the room and wrote Hugo Holmes-Reed in the centre.

  ‘Listen up, everyone. I’ve just been speaking to Dr Dexter and she’s given me some information that leads me to believe we’re dealing with a serial killer.’

  ‘Not the Carriage Killer, guv?’ Frank, the oldest detective constable on her team, said.

  ‘It looks like it, especially as chloroform was used. But we can’t discount a copycat. I want all CCTV footage in and around Lenchester railway station checked.’

  ‘Is there CCTV on the actual train?’ Frank asked.

  ‘You’ll need to check. As far as I’m aware there isn’t. It’s just on the platforms. The train was one of the older ones.’

  ‘Well, if it isn’t, it should be.’

  ‘Agreed, but that’s not important at the moment. I also want you to get in touch with both Coventry and Banbury police forces and train stations, because it’s likely the murder took place somewhere between those locations. The victim got on at Coventry and was due to get off the train at Banbury, where he goes to school, so we need to see footage for those areas.’

  ‘He could have been murdered in Lenchester. If he’d been given chloroform before Banbury and it looked like he was asleep, no one would have noticed,’ Matt suggested.

  ‘Yes, that’s another consideration. But why wait? Why not sedate and murder straight away? Dr Dexter may be able to give us the time of death, although I suspect it won’t help us, as the locations are so close together. I want background checks on everyone who works at the station. Doug, if you can do that, starting with Stanley Crabtree, the conductor on the train and the one who found the body.’

  ‘Yes, guv,’ Doug said.

  ‘Sue, I want you to get in touch with Westfield School and speak to the head teacher. Find out everything you can about our victim. We need to know if anything unusual happened there. Find out whether the victim was liked, who his friends were, and what the staff thought of him. Speak to as many staff and students as you can. Take one of the PCs with you.’

  ‘Yes, guv,’ Sue said.

  ‘Actually, Matt, you can go with,’ she said, changing her mind, as she trusted Matt’s light touch and knew he’d get the information they needed in what was going to be a fraught situation.

  ‘I’ve heard of that school. Don’t they wear straw boaters and act like something out of Tom Brown’s School Days?’ Frank said.

  ‘I have no idea. But judging by the way he was dressed, I think it’s just a normal school. Well, normal for posh people,’ Whitney said.

  ‘I’m surprised you’ve even heard of Thomas Hughes, Frank,’ Doug said.

  ‘Who?’ the old detective asked.

  ‘He wrote the book.’

  ‘What book?’

  ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays,’ Doug said.

  ‘I remember seeing it on the telly. You know I don’t read books.’

  ‘Guys, focus,’ Whitney said.

  ‘Yes, guv,’ both detectives said in unison.

  The team was close, and the banter between them good natured. But she still needed to pull them in line sometimes.

  ‘Ellie, once you’ve examined the victim’s phone, I want you to produce a list of people who were on the train. We need to interview them as soon as we can. The journey commenced in Newcastle.’

  ‘I’ll get in touch with the train operator and check credit card payments, so we can see how many tickets were bought and where from,’ Ellie said.

  ‘We need to ask members of the public to come forward if they were on the train. It doesn’t matter where they got on or off, they might have seen something, and we need to interview them. Right, let’s move it. I need to see the Super to arrange a press conference.’

  She left the incident room and made her way to Detective Superintendent Jamieson’s office. Usually she liked to keep her distance from her boss, but in this instance, she had to get his permission to speak to the media.

  She and Jamieson had a love-hate relationship. Actually, the more she thought about it, hate-hate was a better description. He was new to the force, in comparison to the number of years she’d put in. He’d come in through the Fast Track scheme and was keen to be promoted as soon as possible. She was keen fo
r him to be promoted, too, but not for the same reasons.

  When she reached his office the door was shut, and she could hear him speaking on the phone, his voice booming out, as usual. She waited until he’d finished and knocked.

  ‘Come in,’ he called.

  He was seated behind a large reproduction antique desk, surrounded by his certificates of achievement on the wall. He might have gone to Oxford University, but she wasn’t impressed. Perhaps she should put up on her office wall the gold medallion swimming award she’d earned at primary school, when she was ten.

  ‘Good morning, sir. I need to talk to you about yesterday’s murder.’

  ‘I’ve only just heard about it, as I wasn’t contactable yesterday.’

  ‘Our victim is a fourteen-year-old boy, on his way back to boarding school after spending a weekend at home with his family. Having spoken to Dr Dexter, I believe it’s linked to the carriage murders carried out over the last two years.’

  ‘Carriage murders?’ he said, frowning.

  Seriously? He didn’t know anything about these murders? There had been plenty of media coverage.

  ‘Yes, sir. There have been twelve murders over the past two years. It’s a pattern whereby the killer targets an area, kills four passengers on separate occasions, and then moves on to somewhere else. So far, the murderer has avoided capture.’

  ‘Where have the murders taken place?’

  ‘On trains running through Glasgow, Liverpool, and Bristol. The media is aware of something, but so far, we’ve been able to keep it from them. We need a press conference to let them know and to encourage people on the train to come forward.’

  ‘I assume the Regional Force is part of the wider investigation,’ Jamieson said.

  ‘I believe so, as the murders have crossed county lines. But I don’t know much about the RF’s investigation, as it hasn’t impinged on us up to now.’

  ‘The first thing we must do is contact them and see how they can help us.’

  ‘With all due respect, sir. We don’t know for certain whether it is the Carriage Killer. It could be a copycat. We need to investigate ourselves first, before we consider handing the case over to anyone else.’